[CCWG-ACCT] Fwd: [CCWG-Advisors] jan comments on 17 april ccwg materials
Mathieu Weill
mathieu.weill at afnic.fr
Mon Apr 20 10:01:21 UTC 2015
Dear Colleagues,
Please find below a contribution on our draft public comment report by
Jan Aart Scholte, in his capacity as one of our Advisors.
Best regards,
Mathieu
-------- Message transféré --------
Sujet : [CCWG-Advisors] jan comments on 17 april ccwg materials
Date : Mon, 20 Apr 2015 07:19:58 +0000
De : Jan Aart Scholte <jan.scholte at globalstudies.gu.se>
Pour : CCWG-Advisors <ccwg-advisors at icann.org>,
jordan at internetnz.net.nz <jordan at internetnz.net.nz>
Hello All
Great to see that CCWG continues to make impressive headway after the
productive Istanbul meeting. Many thanks, Adam, for your thorough
briefing accompanying the documents circulated on Friday. My read of the
materials prompts the following thoughts, mainly concerning the
community empowerment mechanism:
(1) The community empowerment mechanism increasingly looks to be based
on SOs and ACs. A key question of course remains with what distribution
of seats, and also whether any other body such as GAC or SSAC would have
a voting representation.
(2) Would any adjustments in the AC and SO constructions be advisable at
this juncture, concurrent with the IANA transition, in order that 'the
Community' as institutionalised in the empowerment mechanism aligns
sufficiently closely with the present actual constellation of ICANN
stakeholders in the world at large?
(3) How (and how readily) could the the formula which constitutes 'the
Community' in the empowerment mechanism be adjusted in future, as and
when the prevailing arrangement is found inadequately to reflect the
constellation of ICANN stakeholders at that future time? Consider how
difficult it has been to adjust membership of the UN Security Council
and the Boards of the Bretton Woods institutions, which remain largely
frozen in the world of 1945. The world of 2045 is likely to be quite
different from that of 2015 - will ICANN's constitution allow it readily
to change with the times?
(4) Related to (3), could overly high supermajorities have unwanted
consequences of excessive constitutional conservatism? To be sure, too
low a threshold could invite constitutional instability, but too high a
threshold could invite institutional ossification. For example,
constitutional reform of the International Monetary Fund has been so
difficult in good part because an 85% vote is needed to alter the
Articles of Agreement, which has effectively entrenched a US Government
veto.
(5) Then there is that ever-present thorn of the accountability of those
who hold ICANN to account. How will participants in the empowerment
mechanism be held accountable to wider stakeholder circles, both within
ICANN (i.e. the ACs and SOs) /and beyond/? Legislators in democratic
nation-states are subject to election by the general population, but
delegates in the ICANN 'parliament' would only be elected by ACs and
SOs, whose connections to wider constituencies - and that so-called
'global public interest' - can be quite thin? How does one ensure that
the community empowerment mechanism does not become a vehicle for
capture of ICANN by insider activists?
Happy for this note to be made available to all CCWG if thought
suitable. Not sure about the protocols of advisors' communications.
Greetings
Jan
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